Charlotte Mason Method
The Ambleside Method used at RiverTree is based upon the ideas of English author, philosopher and educator Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), who founded a teacher training college in Ambleside, England, inspired the creation of the Parents’ National Education Union, and shaped the work of education in hundreds of primary and secondary schools worldwide. Her ideas are set forth extensively in a six volume collection of her writings, and can be summarized as follows: “Children are born Persons” and “Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline and a Life.”
Children as Persons
“We attempt to define a person, the most commonplace person we know, but he will not submit to bounds; some unexpected beauty of nature breaks out; we find he is not what we thought, and begin to suspect that every person exceeds our power of measurement. I believe that the first article of a valid educational creed - ‘Children are born persons’ - is of a revolutionary character… We must either reverence or despise children; and while we regard them as incomplete and undeveloped beings… rather than as weak and ignorant persons, (whose ignorance we must inform and whose weakness we must support, but whose potentialities are as great as our own), we cannot do otherwise than despise children, however kindly or even tenderly we commit the offence.” - Charlotte Mason
At RiverTree no child is viewed as an “incomplete and undeveloped” being, like so much clay in the hands of a system, to be molded by various manipulative techniques. Rather, all children are viewed as persons, created in the image of God with a vast potential. Students are not classified according to strengths or weaknesses, but all participate in a broad, rigorous curriculum. All children calculate, solve, attend, explore, ponder, recite, paint, and sing. All children are held to a high standard in relationship to self, others, ideas, and work. All children are expected to have their ignorance informed and their weakness strengthened, but also to surprise and amaze with the wonder of their God-given potential.
Education as an Atmosphere
“The bracing atmosphere of truth and sincerity should be perceived in every school; and here again the common pursuit of knowledge by teacher and class comes to our aid and creates a current of fresh air perceptible even to the chance visitor, who sees the glow of intellectual life and the moral health on the faces of teachers and children alike.”—(Charlotte Mason)
Released from the burden of competing for ranks, grades, or prizes, RiverTree students are free to learn for the pleasure of learning. RiverTree teachers maintain a classroom atmosphere that is both inspiring and rigorous. Students encounter real life and great ideas in a natural manner. They observe, explore, understand, and respond. they experience the guiding hand of a teacher that is both loving and firm, allowing the natural consequences of their actions to be experienced, be they enjoyable or somewhat unpleasant.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere of a school, the spirit that is breathed in and out by students and teachers alike, is important to a child’s education. Children are perceptive. They naturally pick up on what the adults think is important; the atmosphere tells them and they adjust. We must, therefore, give great care to the atmosphere we allow to exist in our school.
The RiverTree atmosphere is one in which learning is highly valued, for its own sake. We do not strive after the approval of the teacher or the reward of a good mark, a smiley face, or a gold star. or do we seek in our schooling to impress, or to win; it is not a competition. Rather we learn because it is good to know and a delight to mind and soul. A child who masters a mathematics concept should feel the joy that comes from understanding, the satisfaction of a job well done. She should not feel shame because she was slower than her classmates, or even worse, pride because she was the fastest.
The atmosphere here should feel natural. It should remind you more of a home than a typical school. That is because we are not interested in getting children through the system, but rather in preparing them for life. We do not seek to create a hot-house school environment in which students blossom, but are constitutionally unprepared for life outside the schoolhouse walls. Children at RiverTree should encounter life as it is. We will allow them their struggles because these lead growth and strength. The teachers are there to support because the children are young and weak, but they are not removed all the bumps from the road of life.
Most of all, our atmosphere is pervaded by the love and lordship of Christ. We, like our students, are under divine authority and are subject to His teaching. Most importantly, this means we recognize that our students are people. Despite their need to become stronger, more knowledgeable, and wiser, they are nevertheless imbued with the image of God like everyone else. We will not treat them as products, outputs, or empty vessels to be filled; we have not the right. The child is a person in need of intellectual nourishment. He must be fed the best food we can find, in as much quantity as he needs. If we do this, he will surely grow.
Education as a Discipline
“By this formula we mean the discipline of habits formed definitely and thoughtfully whether habits of mind or of body. Physiologist tell us of the adaptation of brain structure to habitual lines of thought, i.e. to hour habits.”—(Charlotte Mason)
Rather than placing primary emphasis upon performance on the next exam, at RiverTree, teachers focus on the kind of student a child is becoming. Does he give focused attention to the task at hand? Does she put forth consistent effort? Is he thorough? Does she show proper respect to authority? Does he relate well to his peers? In cultivating the habits proper to learning, Ambleside teachers equip students to master all areas of study to the fullness of their God-given potential. In cultivation the habits proper to mature living, RiverTree teachers equip students to live full and satisfying lives, rich in devotion to God, service to others, and continuing personal growth.
Habit
Habits are those elements of our behavior that have, through repeated practice, become ingrained in our character. good habits make our lives easier and better, bad ones make them difficult and worse. A child, for example, with the habit of neatness, enjoys a bedroom that is free of clutter. For a child without the habit of neatness, however, cleaning his room becomes a stressful, defeating drudgery. A great part of the educational task, therefore, is to support children in the formation of good habits. What makes the task urgent is that the formation of habits is inevitable: where good habits are absent, bad habits will surely take hold.
Habits are formed through labor. We practice those things we desire as habits until they become effortless second nature. Few adults need to concentrate on holding a pencil correctly because it has become habit. or the five year old, however, the act of holding a pencil requires concentrated thought. Good habits ease our way. They are like the rails on which the train of life runs.
Perhaps no habit is more important in the education of a child, however, than the intellectual habit of attention. it is the hall-mark of the educated person. From the earliest grades, we train children at RiverTree to attend to the matter before them. By asking students to make a single reading of the material and then tell back what they have read, we help the child to develop and reinforce the habit of attention, one which will serve them mightily in later years.
Education as a Life
“For the mind is capable of dealing with only one kind of food; it lives, grows and is nourished upon ideas only; mere information is to it as a meal of sawdust to the body; there are no organs for the assimilation of the one more than of the other.”—(Charlotte Mason)
Education properly understood is not merely the assimilation of data and technique; it is the mind feeding on ideas given expression in God’s creation, great art, beautiful music, and “living books.” Real leaning occurs when students engage with the novelists, poets, philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, artists, musicians, historians, and explorers; when they wonder, ask why and how. RiverTree teachers foster such an engagement using the Ambleside Curriculum.
Living Ideas
The mind is a spiritual organism in need of nourishment and a child’s mind needs and craves ideas in the same way that his body craves food. The job of the school, too often neglected these days, is to put children in contract with as many high quality ideas as we can.
We call them living ideas in order to contrast them with the cold, dead facts of most modern school books. Such ideas have a life of their own and are capable of acting upon us. They capture our imagination, grab hold of us, inspire, impress, or even possess us. In short, ideas behave in many ways like living entities because they are in fact, the fruit of other minds.
Living ideas, while occasionally original, are most often received from someone else. The job of the teacher, then, is to not be the sole conduit through which all of a student’s information must pass. Who could possibly be up to that task? Rather, the teacher should serve as a philosopher, guide and friend in the journey through the world of ideas. A teacher need not master every idea a child could need, she need only have te ability to find them. and we find them in living books. “Living” because they were written by an author who desired that his work be read and enjoyed, because they open life to us and draw us in, because they are infused with a spirit, a purpose, and a point of view.
Perhaps no book is more lively than the Bible. This book, filled with the most life-giving ideas a child could possess, forms a core part of the RiverTree education. Children are brought to the scriptures daily and allowed to drink deeply. the voice of they Holy Spirit is not drowned out by the talky-talk of a moralizing teacher. Instead, the teacher stays out of the way and lets the children “come unto Him.”Charlotte Mason
The Ambleside Method used at RiverTree is based upon the ideas of English author, philosopher and educator Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), who founded a teacher training college in Ambleside, England, inspired the creation of the Parents’ National Education Union, and shaped the work of education in hundreds of primary and secondary schools worldwide. Her ideas are set forth extensively in a six volume collection of her writings, and can be summarized as follows: “Children are born Persons” and “Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline and a Life.”